Menlo Chamber restarts Golden Acorn Awards; nominations due Friday

After 39-year run and a four-year hiatus, these community awards will return to Menlo Park

After a four-year hiatus, the Menlo Park Chamber of Commerce will again be conferring Golden Acorn Awards in 2016. Menlo Park individuals, businesses and organizations will be recognized in four categories: community service, public service, innovation and technology, and business excellence.

However, instead of hosting a large banquet as in years past, the chamber is opting for a more casual event to recognize the winners this year, said chamber President Fran Dehn. The chamber is planning a reception on Sept. 20 at the Stanford Park Hotel with cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.

The deadline to submit nominations is July 22. Anyone in the community can submit them.

The awards would have hit 40 consecutive years in 2012 before they were skipped for cost and participation-related reasons.

"Quite frankly, I think we recognized that maybe the banquet venue was not what the majority of people wanted to participate in," Ms. Dehn said.

The awards got their title from the Golden Acorn restaurant, a Menlo Park eatery opened in 1972 where the first chamber recognition dinners were held, according to previous Almanac reporting. Award categories have changed over the years, but the core purpose of recognizing community service and local businesses has remained the same, Ms. Dehn said.

"We value the nominations as coming from the community, from businesses, from peers," said Ms. Dehn. "These are our friends and neighbors that are doing marvelous things on a daily basis and contributing to our community in a large or small, but very unique way."

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Posted by Great News
a resident of Menlo Park: other
on Jul 19, 2016 at 8:46 am